False perspectives on human language: why statistics needs linguistics

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2302.08822v1
• Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2023 11:40:32 GMT
• Title: False perspectives on human language: why statistics needs linguistics
• Authors: Matteo Greco, Andrea Cometa, Fiorenzo Artoni, Robert Frank, Andrea Moro
• Abstract summary: We show that statistical measures can be defined on the basis of either structural or non-structural models. Only models of surprisal that reflect syntactic structure are able to account for language regularities.
• Score: 0.8699677835130408
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Abstract: A sharp tension exists about the nature of human language between two opposite parties: those who believe that statistical surface distributions, in particular using measures like surprisal, provide a better understanding of language processing, vs. those who believe that discrete hierarchical structures implementing linguistic information such as syntactic ones are a better tool. In this paper, we show that this dichotomy is a false one. Relying on the fact that statistical measures can be defined on the basis of either structural or non-structural models, we provide empirical evidence that only models of surprisal that reflect syntactic structure are able to account for language regularities.

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